Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - The "New Atheism," the vocal minority making the rest of us look bad, or more?

loganmule · 11-04-2006, 12:01 PM

What a provocative thread, and a reasonably civil one, given the OP topic.

As an attorney, any logic to my positions is always tainted by the desire to successfully advocate on a given issue. I'll try to put that aside here, but there still is some amount of value in looking at "god or no god" issue in that context...this isn't original, cf, "The Case For Christ", in which Lee Strobel, a "skeptic" who uses his experience as a legal affairs journalist to critically "investigate" the evidence on the issue, advances legal arguments supporting Christianity (a decent objective review is found here: http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...obel-rev.html), while Earl Doherty in "Challenging The Verdict" advances an opposing point of view.

In law, there is no certainty standard. The highest degree of proof is "beyond a reasonable doubt" in criminal cases. This obviously doesn't mean that innocent people aren't sometimes convicted (i.e., the jury was wrong), but rather is an expression of our preference to try not to get it wrong too often, even at the cost of allowing more guilty persons to go free.

As it relates to the god vs no god issue, I'd be happy to settle for the preponderance standard, that something more probably is true than not. Even then, I find myself stuck, in terms of providing substantiation for my own spiritual beliefs, which are hard for me to get my hands around in the first place, much less presenting an evidence based argument that god more probably than not does exist.

Then there are the unavoidable semantic questions...what is meant by the term faith? (holding to a belief, in the absence of a preponderance of probative supporing evidence?)...by the term god? (impersonal? personal? specifically personal, e.g. ONLY Christian, etc?).

When you wind through all of this, the result is the same. If a declaratory action were brought to prove the existence of god by a preponderance, it would fail. Similarly, if the same action were brought to disprove the existence of god to that standard, it would fail also. There just isn't sufficient PROBATVE evidence for either side to meet the preponderance burden on the issue. Since by definition we cannot know the mind or will of god, who transcends all categories of human thought, description, or understanding, we cannot know whether or not god is a factor in the creation and behavior of the universe and its inhabitants. That said, I have grown personaly skeptical that there is in fact a personal god.

I share sentiments of abaya (#2) and flat5(#3) about the OP. Still, there is a sense of wonder, and of unfathomable power, about the universe which holds for me a place for faith, or something very much like it. I find myself believing that there is a reason for everything, while at the same time conceding that I'll never know what that reason is. On most days, this suffices.

11-04-2006, 12:01 PM	#113 (permalink)
loganmule Junkie Location: midwest	What a provocative thread, and a reasonably civil one, given the OP topic. As an attorney, any logic to my positions is always tainted by the desire to successfully advocate on a given issue. I'll try to put that aside here, but there still is some amount of value in looking at "god or no god" issue in that context...this isn't original, cf, "The Case For Christ", in which Lee Strobel, a "skeptic" who uses his experience as a legal affairs journalist to critically "investigate" the evidence on the issue, advances legal arguments supporting Christianity (a decent objective review is found here: http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...obel-rev.html), while Earl Doherty in "Challenging The Verdict" advances an opposing point of view. In law, there is no certainty standard. The highest degree of proof is "beyond a reasonable doubt" in criminal cases. This obviously doesn't mean that innocent people aren't sometimes convicted (i.e., the jury was wrong), but rather is an expression of our preference to try not to get it wrong too often, even at the cost of allowing more guilty persons to go free. As it relates to the god vs no god issue, I'd be happy to settle for the preponderance standard, that something more probably is true than not. Even then, I find myself stuck, in terms of providing substantiation for my own spiritual beliefs, which are hard for me to get my hands around in the first place, much less presenting an evidence based argument that god more probably than not does exist. Then there are the unavoidable semantic questions...what is meant by the term faith? (holding to a belief, in the absence of a preponderance of probative supporing evidence?)...by the term god? (impersonal? personal? specifically personal, e.g. ONLY Christian, etc?). When you wind through all of this, the result is the same. If a declaratory action were brought to prove the existence of god by a preponderance, it would fail. Similarly, if the same action were brought to disprove the existence of god to that standard, it would fail also. There just isn't sufficient PROBATVE evidence for either side to meet the preponderance burden on the issue. Since by definition we cannot know the mind or will of god, who transcends all categories of human thought, description, or understanding, we cannot know whether or not god is a factor in the creation and behavior of the universe and its inhabitants. That said, I have grown personaly skeptical that there is in fact a personal god. I share sentiments of abaya (#2) and flat5(#3) about the OP. Still, there is a sense of wonder, and of unfathomable power, about the universe which holds for me a place for faith, or something very much like it. I find myself believing that there is a reason for everything, while at the same time conceding that I'll never know what that reason is. On most days, this suffices.